


I Don't Like Fairytales

by eliddell



Series: Blood of Heaven and Earth 'verse [6]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: "Happily ever after" doesn't always work, Attempted sexual assault that doesn't get very far, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Tags Are Hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23699218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliddell/pseuds/eliddell
Summary: In a story, we seldom see what happens to the princess after some knight rescues her.  Real Life isn't so tidy.Although she's regained her memories and left AVALANCHE, Elfé/Felicia is still struggling to find her place in the world.  Having an overprotective father isn't helping that process at all.
Relationships: Elfé & Veld (Compilation of FFVII), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Blood of Heaven and Earth 'verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1393846
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	I Don't Like Fairytales

**Author's Note:**

> Not the promised sequel, I'm afraid—I was thirty-odd chapters into that one when I realized that I hadn't mentioned Elfé even once. It was a loose end that nagged at me until I wrote about it. And when I did, I was expecting about half the amount of story I got. Damned characters.
> 
> This takes place during and just after the last few chapters of _Shadow in the Mirror_ , so in the spring of εγλ 0003.
> 
> None of this has anything to do with the Remake.
> 
>  **Disclaimer** : Final Fantasy VII belongs to Square-Enix or whatever they're calling themselves these days, not to me. The specific text of this fanfic falls under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license to the extent that this does not infringe on Square's rights.

I knew almost from the beginning that it wasn't going to work, but for the first few months, I was willing to pretend that it would. After all, it's hard to feel uncomfortable with your situation when you're spending most of your time sleeping, recovering from having the materia that was draining the life out of you torn from the back of your hand. So at first, if my father was . . . hovering, I didn't mind all that much. It was actually kind of nice to be looked after that way for a bit, nice to be able to pretend I was a little girl again. Nice not to be the nominal head of AVALANCHE, with people's lives riding on my decisions even if Fuhito was the one who was really in charge. 

It was when I got strong enough to leave the apartment and the Shinra Building on my own that the problems started. 

"I'll have Nunchuk go with you." 

I rolled my eyes. "Daddy, it's a bookstore and it's only _three blocks_ from here, on the Plate. I don't think I need a Turk escort." I felt a little silly calling him _Daddy_. It made me sound younger than I was. But he insisted. 

Dad was giving me his stubborn look, though. "You've never been there before. You could get lost." 

"I have a map, and a PHS," I pointed out. 

"You're not going alone. I'm sorry, Felicia, but someone could kidnap you--or worse--to try to get leverage on me." 

I gave in that time, because his argument wasn't one that I could counter just then. I really _was_ at some risk because of him, and I _was_ still too weak to defend myself properly. And so I waited impatiently through the weeks until the medics cleared me for more than "light exercise". Shinra Tower's executive gym was well-equipped for a room that saw so little use, and I threw myself into calisthenics and lifting weights and running on a treadmill until my muscle started to come back. 

"Do you know where I can get a practice sword?" I asked Dad at dinner on the night I decided I was finally satisfied with my performance. 

"You don't need one." And there was that stubborn look again. Somehow, I managed not to scream. 

"Technically, I don't need a bed, either. Or most of the rest of what you put in my room." Stuffed animals. There were lots of stuffed animals. I'm sure I would have loved them when I was six, but that had been a long time ago. 

"Felicia--" 

"My name is Elfe," I snapped. Maybe not the smartest thing to say, but I was holding onto my temper by the skin of my teeth. 

"Elfe is dead," Dad said. "She has to be. If she were still alive, she'd be in prison." 

"You mean this isn't a prison? It seems to meet most of the definitions to me. I'm not allowed outside without an escort. I'm not allowed to meet with my friends. I have no money of my own, so I have to ask _you_ for anything I want to buy, even if it's just a damned can of Choco-Cola. I don't think you have any idea how . . . how _infantilizing_ that is." I sounded, to my disgust, just like any other teenager, except for the random vocabulary I'd picked up from Fuhito. 

"I've never forbidden you to meet with your friends." 

"'Felicia, if you go anywhere _near_ that boy, I will have Reno tranq you and haul you back to the apartment,'" I quoted. 

"That's different." 

"No," I said. "No, it isn't. Shears _is_ my friend, and I _am_ Elfe. Maybe I'm not _only_ Elfe, but that doesn't mean I'm going to throw away five years of my _life_." 

I stormed out of the room before he could say anything else, leaving my meal unfinished. The next day, I made my own damned practice sword, or at least a straight stick of about the right length, by breaking a broomhandle. Cissnei, who was my Turk escort for the day, smiled conspiratorially at me and gave me an old pair of her fighting gloves to protect my hands. And, well, that was that. I spent most of the afternoon either waving a stick around or sitting in a chair panting and drinking water and feeling disgusted with myself for still having no stamina. 

A few days of that and I badly wanted something more than a stick to work with, but I knew there was no chance. Even Cissnei, when I asked her, had silently shaken her head, which I took to mean that Dad had forbidden the Turks from giving me weapons, even practice ones. 

What I did next was possibly not the smartest thing I'd ever attempted, but I knew there were three places in the Shinra Building where I might be able to find a practice sword. The Turks had already been forbidden to help me, and I would stand out like a sore thumb on the SOLDIER level. But there were women in the infantry, and there was a detachment housed in the levels just below the Plate. They had their own equipment and exercise facilities. I should be able to . . . borrow something from them. If I was caught, I might be lectured and locked up in the apartment for a few days, but I doubted anything else would happen . . . and if it did, I felt like I should just let it. At least in a real prison, I wouldn't be expected to pretend I was happy and doing okay. 

Dad was really all I had left to lose at this point, and I felt like I was losing him anyway. He meant well. He was worried about me. But I couldn't seem to get it through his head that he was smothering me. 

For the past several years, I'd been living as an adult and making my own decisions. I couldn't--I _wouldn't_ \--be reduced to the status of a child again. 

Giving the very junior Turk who was my protection detail that day--a new recruit, Shiv or something--the slip wasn't very hard. He wasn't all that good at his job yet, and I had never tried to run before. He'd probably thought this was going to be an easy mission. 

The elevators that went to the under-Plate levels were separate from the regular ones--couldn't have the office drones wandering into the barracks, was probably Shinra's thinking--and Shiv might not even have known they were there, much less known that _I_ knew. I had quite a bit of restricted information about the layout of Shinra Tower hidden inside my head, actually, having studied it in order to plan attacks while I was with AVALANCHE. 

Third level below Plate. Infantry gyms, guardhound kennel, storage rooms, some other stuff that we'd never figured out, like the odd-shaped space that didn't seem to be accessible from this side. What I wanted was probably stored somewhere near the gym, though. Which, of course, was the area farthest from the elevator. 

I felt like a cat in a dog suit as I strode along the hallways, but I forced myself not to show it. _Look like you belong, and most people will think you do._ It was the most basic infiltration tactic, the one everyone in AVALANCHE knew. I just wished I'd been able to get my hands on a pair of army boots. I had an excuse ready for the sneakers-- _made a mess of my ankle, and the docs said I wasn't to wear anything heavy on my feet for a couple of days_ \--but if I had to use it, that would mean I had already attracted attention. Other than that, I was wearing the blandest workout clothes I had been able to scrounge up, grey trousers and a white T-shirt. And my hair was still short enough to be regulation--Dad hadn't argued about that, at least, although he'd looked disappointed when I gave my request to the hairdresser. 

_Equipment stowage_ , read the door. That was probably right. It wasn't even locked. 

"Haven't seen you around here before." 

I made myself not flinch, and turned slowly instead of whipping around. My instincts were screaming at me, reminding me that I was _unarmed_. 

The guy who owned the voice was clearly off-duty, still in uniform but without the helmet or the scarf. He was pretty average otherwise--brown hair, brown eyes, big nose, crooked front teeth not bad enough to have been corrected by a dentist. 

"I just transferred in from Junon," I lied. _Calm. Don't give anything away._

The infantryman chuckled. "If I'd known there were cuties like you there, I might have applied for a transfer myself. So, what's up?" 

"Looking for some exercise. I've been cooped up on a transport all day, and I don't have to report for duty until tonight." He was leaning in closer, boxing me in. I didn't like that at all. 

"Oh, I can give you some exercise, sweet thing. Lots of it." He'd eaten something with way too much garlic in it for lunch, and was breathing it directly in my face. 

"Not interested. Now, back off if you want to keep your balls." I gave him my best I'm-the-boss glare, perfected on men like Shears. 

"I don't think that's a good idea, honey. See, if you just came in from Junon, and you're off-duty . . . then no one's going to be looking for you, are they?" Two more men appeared behind him. They were all grinning nastily. 

Half the Turks in Shinra were probably looking for me right now, but I knew I didn't dare wait until one of them found us. So I brought my knee up hard and fast into Garlic Breath's crotch, ducked away to the left, and ran. 

_Dead-end hallway,_ my memory told me. Except for one little detail. I dodged right, pulled the garbage chute open, and dove. 

It wasn't exactly the most fun ride I had ever had, and it ended when I popped out of the Plate's central support about a storey above the ground and fell into a pile of trash. I was going to be one solid bruise until I got my hands on a Restore materia or a potion, and a couple of broken ends of things got me scratched up, but I somehow managed not to end up impaled on anything. Not a miracle, but close. 

I was in a bit of trouble now, though. I mused on it as I picked splinters out of my arm. Stuck below the Plate with ID but no gil, no weapon, and no AVALANCHE members to help me out. Or Turks, for that matter. The only place I could think of where I _might_ be able to get help was the Cetra's church. Or I could try pestering someone at the train station until they either ran me off or gave in and called Shinra Tower. 

. . . No. I'd try the church. Even if I was pretty sure it was a couple of Sectors away. 

I looked around for something that could be used as a weapon and ended up with a baseball bat--a metal one, slightly deformed from hitting something much too hard, but still good enough for clonking whole eaters and hedgehog pies over their ugly little heads. 

I bashed the first hedgehog pie I found so hard that my hands stung and the bat deformed a bit more. The monster's head also exploded messily, spraying blood across my shirt. Not that I cared when the descent through the garbage chute had already left my clothes looking like well-used dusting rags. 

I'd hoped I'd feel a little better after killing something, but I didn't. Still tired and angry and vaguely sick to my stomach. _Congratulations, Dad. By not allowing me to have a weapon, you just about got me . . ._ I shook my head, choosing not to think the word. I had enough unpleasant stuff rattling around in my brain right now. 

I took out a total of eight whole eaters and three hedgehog pies before I reached the wall between Sectors Four and Five. The second hedgehog pie had given me a potion, which helped my bruises a bit, and I'd found a slightly misshapen Fire materia in a pile of reactor slag (which shouldn't have been dumped in the open, but I wasn't surprised to find Shinra not following its own rules). I didn't have anything to equip it to, but I could get a sort of half-strength spell out of it by just holding it in my hand. As with the potion, it helped. 

The troopers running the wall checkpoint barely spared me a glance. I had ID, it at least sort of looked like me, and that was all they cared about. And so I passed through into a new area of garbage and nuisance monsters. 

Except that, a couple of blocks from the wall, I ran into one that was more than a nuisance. 

If I'd been properly armed, or had an Ice materia, I wouldn't have been all that concerned about a lone bomb, but killing it with a baseball bat before it could self-destruct was . . . _not possible_ , the strategic and calculating part of my brain told me. It would have been difficult even if I'd still had Zirconaide implanted in my hand. 

If I ran, it would follow. If I tried to redirect its attention to someone else, like the little boy with the dirty face who was half-hidden behind that lamppost over there . . . I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I might be willing to kill innocents for a cause I thought was of sufficient worth, but saving my own neck didn't qualify. 

If I pushed the bomb to self-destruct, at least the kid would live. It didn't make up for some of the things I'd done--there were more than a few people who had died because of AVALANCHE--but it was better than nothing. Maybe after the bits of my soul were washed clean by the Lifestream, they'd have something more worthwhile to offer the world in their next incarnation. 

. . . I wished I'd had more time for the Study of Planet Life. I'd only joined AVALANCHE because I believed in it. _I think I might have liked to go back to Cosmo Canyon,_ I thought as I shifted my grip on the bat. Then I was screaming at the top of my lungs as I ran toward the bomb. 

I probably never would have hit the stupid creature at all if it had been even a hair brighter, but it kind of stared at me for a second or two as though it couldn't believe what it was seeing, and that gave me enough time to bring the bat down _hard_. I knocked the bomb out of the air and felt it squish slightly between the bat and the pavement. Of course, when my pitiful makeshift weapon rebounded, the monster immediately swelled up. 

I took several quick steps toward a broken concrete wall that I was hoping would shield me from the worst of the explosion, and turned again to meet the bomb. Hit it again, and then had to drop the bat because the metal had picked up enough heat that it was stinging my hands. 

The bomb swelled again, and I gritted my teeth and leaped for the meagre protection of the broken wall. Then a gun roared like an angry behemoth, and the bomb tumbled down in a shower of green sparks rather than exploding. 

The kid hiding behind the lamppost bolted as a figure in a modified SOLDIER uniform stepped out into the half-lit gloom that passed for daylight below the Plate. The red-eyed man spun his huge gun in his hand before returning it to its holster, paying no attention to the boy at all. I would have thought he wasn't paying any attention to me, either, except that his gaze was focused on my face. 

I recognized him, of course. Vincent Valentine, once my father's partner, now working as a sort of half-Turk, half-SOLDIER. 

Without speaking to me, he pulled a PHS from his pocket, flipped it open, and made a call to one of the numbers on his speed dial. "Yes, I found her. She's fine." A pause as he listened. "You don't get off work for another three hours. There's no hurry." Pause. "I would hope you trust me more than that. Now, stop trying to give Rufus an excuse to fire you." He hung up without saying good-bye, slipped the PHS back in his pocket, and went over to check on the last green sparks from the bomb. 

I moved up beside him, and realized there was a small explosive device among the remains. Bombs sometimes left them behind when they died, just like hedgehog pies left potions. 

"Yours, I think," Valentine said, nodding toward the spoils. 

I shook my head. "You were the one that killed it." 

"I have no use for such an object." 

"I'm not sure I do either." But I took it and put it in my pocket. 

"You might want to make sure you have a proper weapon next time." 

"I don't have the money for a sword right now." Part of me wanted to whine about Dad's obstructionism like a normal teenager. The rest of me knew better. 

Vincent gave me a long, thoughtful look. "We should be able to get you something at the weapons shop in Wall Market. Consider it a replacement for the dozen or so years of birthday presents I probably would have bought for my partner's daughter if things had been different." 

"My father might not approve." I fell in beside the ex-Turk as he began to walk. 

"Why does that matter? You're legally of age." 

"I'm also completely dependent on him right now, and he wants me to turn back into the little girl he remembers me as." 

"So that's why." Vincent didn't elaborate on that, though, and we walked for a while in silence. Then, "I'm worried about your father," the gunman said, out of the blue. "He's been . . . slightly off . . . since we returned from the Northern Crater. At first, I attributed it to the shock of suddenly having you back and expected it to fade as he grew accustomed to you being here, but now I'm starting to think that he's not going to snap out of it without outside help. The other Turks haven't noticed yet, but if he starts neglecting his duties . . ." 

He didn't have to finish that. I knew what happened to Turks that were deemed unfit. 

"Thank you," I said, and Vincent gave me a puzzled look. "For worrying about him," I explained. "I don't think he has many people who do." 

A slight shrug. "We may no longer be partners, but I still consider him a friend. I have few of those, and he has even fewer. Each one is important." 

I didn't have many friends either. Running AVALANCHE hadn't been helpful in forming friendships. I thought Cissnei and I might have gotten along if she hadn't been working for my father, but right now the person whose face came to mind when I thought about friends was Shears. I'd been at his trial--I'd insisted on it, even though I'd been too tired to sit up straight for more than a couple of hours at a time--so at least I knew where he was: a minimum-security prison on the edge of the Slums. Somehow, despite everything he'd done in AVALANCHE, Shears had managed to avoid being directly and provably responsible for anyone's death. He'd been convicted of assault and various flavours of conspiracy, but the judge had allowed the sentences to run concurrently. Shears would be eligible for parole before the end of the year. 

Wall Market was noisy and crowded, but then it always had been. At least people never got in Vincent's way once they got a look at his uniform and the hand cannon he carried. One pickpocket, age eight or so, did try for him, but the ex-Turk just grabbed the girl's wrist as she tried to slip her hand into his pocket, looked her in the eye, and shook his head. Other than that, no one bothered us. 

The weapons shop hadn't changed either--the entrance with the two workers behind their metal-mesh defenses, and the showroom off to the right, which contained a tightly-racked selection of guns, blades, spears, staves, fighting gloves, and exotic weapons. None of the guns were loaded, and if you tried to steal something, one of the workers outside would be glad to shoot you on your way past the cages. They'd only had to do that a few times before the attempts at theft stopped. 

I went through the swords systematically. In the end, I chose a straight blade that tapered from two inches near the hilt down to around one at the point, double-edged and about the length of my arm from pommel to tip. The cord wrapped around the hilt was bland beige and had been recently replaced. It was good and sharp and had the peacock sheen suggesting a mithril alloy, but was otherwise a very average sword. 

It also cost nearly three thousand gil, but Vincent didn't seem to care. He dropped the cash on the counter and told them to get me a scabbard. The one they handed over was made from cheap, bright green plastic, with a worn nylon webbing baldric threaded through the bracket on the back, but I didn't care. I had a sword, and I equipped the misshapen Fire materia in one of the two pommel slots before sheathing it and slinging it over my shoulder. The baldric was going to take a bit of getting used to--as Elfe, I'd worn a belt. 

Unexpectedly, Vincent handed me a second materia, light green, with a serial number stenciled on it, which meant it was an old Shinra-made flaky marble (and probably never used, because the number always wore off after you equipped them a few times). A Cure, I realized as I rolled it between my fingers. Possibly the next most useful thing he could have given me . . . and worth a couple of hundred gil on its own, even if it would only ever be able to cast a single weak spell. 

I glanced at the ex-Turk, who shrugged and said, "Not worth my while to find a buyer. In SOLDIER, you can't even give those away now that they have better manufacturing processes." 

Damned Turks, always knowing which question you were going to ask before you had a chance to ask it. And the weapon shop staff were staring at us. I gestured toward the outside door, and Vincent followed me out into the twilight of Wall Market. 

I really should have gone straight to the train station, to return to the Plate and Shinra Tower and Dad's apartment, but instead I found myself hesitating, looking toward the edge of the city. Which meant that I was staring at a concrete wall that formed part of the base for a now-mothballed mako reactor. Vincent didn't seem to care, standing silently beside me, waiting for me to speak. 

"Thinking of absent friends," I offered him at last, when the silence got to be too much. "I haven't seen Shears since his sentencing--I couldn't very well go to the prison while I was being watchdogged by a murder of Turks." 

"We might have just enough time if we jog from here to the outer ring train," Vincent offered. "Can you do it?" 

I resolved to spend tomorrow in bed, if I had to. "Yes." 

My legs remembered the ground-covering lope, even if they weren't accustomed to doing it anymore. I pounded along the streets, with Vincent gliding at my side. Sometimes he'd seem to vanish into the shadows for a bit, but he always reappeared after a block or two. 

It was a bit after three in the afternoon when we arrived at the Sector Six Lower Loop station, which served the trains that ran endlessly in circles around the edges of Midgar's Slums. Spur lines led back towards the Plate's central support through the odd-numbered Sectors. It wasn't nearly as good as the public transit system up on the Plate, but it got you close enough to most places that you wouldn't die trying to walk the rest of the way. I would have liked to rest, but when Vincent continued on past the ticket agent, flashing his ID at her and gesturing at me to indicate that we were together, I followed out of necessity. After all, I didn't have a bent gil of my own to actually _buy_ a ticket with, so I had to take advantage of the perks of Vincent's position as a SOLDIER First. Which included free used of public transit. 

We needed to get to Sector Two, so we'd taken the counterclockwise train. Vincent didn't bother to try to find a seat, just leaning up against a pole. The slum-dwellers and Shinra drones who occupied the rest of the train gave him a wide berth, which at least meant that I could sit down without rubbing shoulders with a ragged drunk who smelled like he'd bathed in cheap rum. My feet throbbed even after I used my new Cure materia on them. I really was out of shape, despite all the work I'd been doing. There had been a time when I'd been able to run for days, and not all of it had been because of Zirconaide. 

Sector Two Minimum Security Prison was a run-down concrete building with a high wall around it and guards at the gate, but other than that, it was better than I'd expected--clean and quiet, and from a distance, at least, the prisoners looked more irritable than oppressed. The guards didn't bother escorting us to the visitors' room, either, although we were given a clear path to follow and warned not to stray from it. Or at least I was warned. Like the people on the train, everyone here gave Vincent a wide berth. 

When I asked to see Shears, I was taken to a small room and told I wasn't allowed to take any weapons inside with me, so I handed my new sword to Vincent, who seemed intent on holding up one of the walls outside. The little room had two doors, and while it wasn't _private_ , exactly (there was a camera glaring at me from a corner near the ceiling), there at least weren't any of those barriers to separate the inmates from the visitors that you see in the movies. I was also given a warning about contraband, and told that if I gave anything to the prisoner, or got too close to him from an angle that they couldn't see clearly, Shears would be strip-searched when he left. 

I sat down on one of the two chairs bolted to the floor at the center of the room, and they brought Shears in. The orange prison jumpsuit made him look kind of yellowish, but his eyes brightened the moment he saw me. 

"'Fay! I wasn't expecting you to come for a visit. Wasn't expecting to see you again at all, really." 

I shook my head. "I'm only sorry it took me so long to get down here. My father . . . doesn't approve of you, or what I've been doing for the past several years." 

Shears snorted. "You mean your old man hates my guts. Not surprising. Doubt it's gonna change in the next six months, so if you don't wanna see me again after I get outta here, I'll understand." 

"My father doesn't run my life." _Shouldn't run my life,_ I corrected mentally . . . but I had half a year to work on that. "He doesn't get to dictate who my friends are." 

"Glad to hear it. So . . . what're we gonna do after I _do_ get out, Boss?" Shears looked at me expectantly. I shouldn't have been surprised, I guess. Planning never had really been his thing. 

"I don't know," I admitted. "I've mostly just been . . . recovering. We don't need to fight Shinra anymore--they're no longer what they were, with the old president dead. The most I have at the moment is a half-baked idea about going back to Cosmo Canyon." 

"Cosmo Canyon," Shears said thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Ain't never been there, but if you like it, sure. Guess it's as good a place as any to be starting over." 

Starting over. I'd thought I was already trying to do that, in Midgar, but really I'd just been trying to pick up Felicia Verdot's interrupted life. It wasn't surprising that wasn't working too well, either--even if Kalm had never been bombed, there would have been big changes in my life between the ages of eleven and sixteen. 

"Are you sure you want to come with me?" I asked, and was surprised and even a bit alarmed as I saw a blush spread along Shears' cheekbones. _Is he . . . ? Are we . . . ? Why didn't I ever notice? Was I_ that _wrapped up in my own problems?_

"Promised myself a long time ago I was gonna look after you, and that ain't changed. Like I said, Cosmo Canyon's as good a place as any. 'Specially since I don't wanna stay in Midgar." 

Okay. Okay. I wasn't sure whether I was ready for _that_ with Shears, but I had six months to think about whether I wanted to remain just good friends with him or try for something more. _Dad will fly off the handle if I tell him I'm going to date Shears._

_Dad will fly off the handle if I tell him that I'm leaving._

Was there a way to stop him from doing that? I tried to imagine telling him about it in several different ways. Over dinner. Over breakfast. Right after he got home in the evening. On one of our rare outings together. In the middle of a formal Shinra party. 

. . . Actually, that last might have possibilities. Dad, like most of the Turks, wasn't the kind to make a scene in public. If I told him right at the beginning, he'd have at least a couple of hours to get over his initial negative reaction. And Vincent . . . might not be on my side, exactly, but wasn't exactly on Dad's, either. He'd probably help if Dad started going really overboard. 

Someone was pounding on the door. "Okay, wrap it up, you two! Visiting hours are over." 

"Guess I gotta go," Shears said. 

I nodded. "I'll try to get back down here before they let you out, but it might not be for a while." 

Shears shrugged. "If you can't, you can't. Just try to be there when they _do_ let me out, okay?" 

I suddenly wanted to hug him, but I didn't do it. Not this time, not with that camera staring at us. I'd save it up for the day he got out. 

"Try your best to get time off for good behaviour," I said as I opened the door leading back into the hall, and Shears snorted. He never had been all that good at behaving himself. 

Vincent silently handed my sword back to me, and I slung the baldric back over my shoulder. "Thank you," I said. Not just for holding onto my sword, but for everything. And the way he nodded seemed to say that he understood that. 

We didn't have to run for the train this time, but I was still the only person who seemed comfortable getting close to Vincent. That meant that I once more had a seat to myself, and time to think if I wanted it. 

Confront Dad in the middle of a Shinra party. There was one coming up, wasn't there? The formal celebration of President Rufus' accession, which had been put off for so many months. Dad wouldn't act out in front of Rufus . . . I hoped. And he'd already said I was going to be his plus-one for the party, because he didn't have anyone else to bring. I'd suffered through one dress fitting already, and there was going to be another one. So, confront Dad in front of his boss and the rest of the Board of Directors and . . . what? 

_We'll deal with that when we come to it,_ I decided. This wasn't a Turk plan, where everyone had studied everything to death and the contingencies had all been plotted out. This was an AVALANCHE plan, where we created a basic framework and just winged it from there, because there were always random elements that no one could account for. I just had to be in the right place at the right time, and say what I was going to say, and then pick a course of action depending on how ballistic Dad actually went. 

Figuring that out seemed to wipe out the rest of the adrenaline, or whatever it was that I'd been running on. I dozed off after we changed trains in Sector Three, and woke up feeling slightly dizzy from the long spiral up to the Plate. 

Dad was waiting for us in the lobby of the Shinra Building. He had an unpleasant expression on his face, and, knowing him, he'd put it there on purpose. 

"Felicia, I'm very disappointed in you." 

I shrugged. "And I'm disappointed in you. Does it matter? Look, I've had a long day. I need to eat and go to bed." It was just putting off the inevitable confrontation, and I knew it, but I really was tired. 

Vincent entered the elevator with us, although he pressed the button for a different floor. And I found I felt happier having a potential witness there. When had things gotten so bad? 

"Stop staring at my sword like you've never seen one before," I added to Dad, although he wasn't, really. I just wanted to have the inevitable confrontation about my keeping the weapon _now_ , in front of Vincent, instead of later on in the apartment. 

Mind you, the real punchline was that I'd been handling swords since long before I'd taken up with AVALANCHE--I'd been the Kalm-area girls' fencing champion in my age group three years running before the town got firebombed. Dad had probably forgotten that, though, since work had usually prevented him from attending the competitions. 

"She'd end up in trouble even without it, Veld," Vincent put in unexpectedly. "We certainly did, when we were her age. At least if she's armed, she stands a chance of getting _out_ of trouble again on her own. You can't have the Turks watch her all the time--sooner or later, they're going to be needed elsewhere." 

Dad gave me a slightly shifty look. 

"Veld, don't tell me you were going to lock her in the apartment if you couldn't find anyone to look after her. She's sixteen, not six." 

"You wouldn't understand. It isn't as though you ever had children." 

Vincent shrugged. "I _was_ a child at one time, although I admit that the insight that gives me is rather one-sided." 

"And it was a while ago," I pointed out, a bit tired of them talking past me. "But I'd say he's still doing pretty good." 

Dad looked at Vincent, then at me again, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Against my better judgement, I'll let you keep the sword." 

My inner Reno suggested _Who the hell says you'd be able to take it away from me, yo?!_ as a response, but I just said, "Thanks," and leaned back against the wall. 

It really had been a long day. 

The next week was . . . quiet, mostly. I spent a lot of time hunting hedgehog pies, with a Turk trailing along behind me. The first time I just went ahead and left Shinra Tower through the front doors, Shotgun, who was my assigned escort that day, gave me what I could only describe as a constipated look, but didn't try to stop me. 

"It's because Veld gave us two different orders about you," Cissnei told me when I asked her. "'Don't let her leave the Tower unless you've cleared it with me in advance' and 'don't use force on her unless it's a matter of life and death'. When our orders contradict each other, we're supposed to use our discretion. It's part of the job. So we've mostly kind of agreed that you're not likely to die from hunting Slums monsters. Even the infantry can take those out. I would have thought it was kind of boring, though." 

"I'm trying to Master the half-assed Fire materia I found," I admitted. "Even if I only get half-price for it because it's a bit . . . off, that's a lot more money than I have now." I'd gotten it up to the second level, but there had been a couple of times when I'd tried to cast with it and nothing had happened. I wasn't going to mention that when I took it to the store. 

"We could go look for deenglow in the Train Graveyard next time," Cissnei offered, touching her chin as she thought. "At least that would give you something different to hunt." 

I was right: this girl and I might have been friends if things had gone a bit differently. We ended up making the hunt into a kind of girls' afternoon out, me and Cissnei and Cissnei's trainee, a girl named Elena who was about the same age as the two of us. It was the most fun I'd had in a while. When _was_ the last time I'd laughed? I was pretty sure it was when Shears had tried to juggle those parking cones while we'd been waiting for a contact at a construction site at the far end of nowhere. 

It was the memory of that afternoon that got me through the final dress fitting that evening. There had been a lot of argument about the dress, actually. Dad had wanted me to wear something frilly that would have made me look younger. I'd turned him down . . . but I'd also turned down the design the seamstress had first suggested, with the plunging neckline. What I'd chosen in the end was somewhere in between, a cross between a south Wutainese traditional style and Midgar modernity, that left my arms bare but covered my torso, including the shoulders . . . although the fit above the waist was close enough not to leave much to the imagination. It was a compromise in all kinds of ways, but an acceptable one. 

I didn't have any jewelry to wear with it. I mean, it hadn't been very high on my list of things to shop for, and anything of my mother's that I might have expected to inherit was so much slag buried under a foundation in the rebuilt Kalm, probably. My ears weren't even pierced anymore--the holes must have grown shut, without my noticing, while I was still in Hojo's lab. 

Daddy clearly hadn't thought about jewelry either, so we were both surprised when a small package arrived the afternoon of the party. _From the Department of Administrative Research, with best wishes,_ the card read. Inside, there was a small box of plain polished wood, and inside _that_ , a simple gold chain supporting a round, transparent pendant about an inch in diameter. It was etched with the continents of Gaia, the work detailed and exquisite. 

"That's Tseng's handwriting," Dad said, and I blinked. I hadn't even _spoken_ to Tseng, although I had, of course, seen the Wutainese Turk around. "Somebody must have given him a nudge. I wonder who?" 

"Cissnei?" I suggested. I hadn't mentioned anything about having no jewelry to the redhead, but she was a Turk, and Turks Found Things Out. 

"Or Vincent--the man pays more attention to all the little details than he lets people think. If you don't like it, I can probably make whoever was involved take it back." 

I shook my head. "No, it's perfect." A very tasteful representation of the Planet. Of one of the things that mattered most to me. When I dressed that evening, it glittered beautifully against the dark blue of my bodice, and made me feel a little less like an idiot. 

I'd held out for flat shoes, too, since I'd never worn heels and had no idea how to walk in them, but that didn't keep me from nearly tripping and landing on my face as I entered the ballroom on Dad's arm. I had to hold a lot more firmly to him than I'd intended while I regained my balance. 

"You have to take little mincing steps if you're wearing something that long." Trust Cissnei to pop up at my elbow and almost scare me into falling over again. "It takes practice to learn how to do it right. Or you can grab the fabric at the sides and lift until it's clear of your ankles, if the skirt's full enough." 

"I have an idea," I said. "Why don't you wear the dress, and I'll wear the suit?" 

Cissnei giggled. "You'd have to take my security detail too, then. The only Turks here as _guests_ are your dad, Tseng, and Vincent. Although Vincent's more of a plus-one." 

"You're kidding me. Whose?" 

She nodded to the side. It took me the moment to spot Vincent, who was standing in the shadows by the wall. He was wearing a well-tailored black suit rather than his SOLDIER uniform, and his huge gun was nowhere in sight, although I doubted he was unarmed. And beside him . . . Great Gaia, there was no mistaking who _that_ was. Sephiroth hadn't even bothered to dress up for the occasion. He was wearing his iconic leather coat, silver hair flowing down his back like liquid mithril. And while he wasn't _smiling_ , exactly, his expression as he spoke to Vincent was almost _tender_. 

"It's simultaneously the best- and worst-kept secret in Shinra," Cissnei added. "They don't talk about it if there's anyone present who doesn't already know, they barely touch in public . . . but no one who knows Sephiroth would be able to miss it." 

"I asked him once why he fought, and he couldn't answer me," I said slowly. "Guess he found his reason." 

"Guess he did." 

Dad cleared his throat. "You two can have more girl talk afterwards, but Felicia and I should go and congratulate Rufus." Although I couldn't imagine why Rufus Shinra would care about _my_ congratulations. Well, it was probably some kind of protocol thing. Escaping to Cosmo Canyon would hopefully keep me from having to learn any more of that. 

Dad led me up to where Rufus was standing, resplendent in white, eyes glowing faintly with mako. Tseng stood at his elbow, dressed as a Turk in his blue suit even though, according to Cissnei, he wasn't here as security tonight. Turks weren't often guests at functions like this, so it was possible he didn't have anything else appropriate to wear . . . but it was more likely that he was making a statement to Rufus. 

The young Shinra President was just as thoroughly armed as his Turks, if not more so--the coat couldn't completely hide the shotgun at his belt from someone who already knew how he carried it. 

He and Dad exchanged a few banal words, and then it was my turn. 

"Miss Verdot, it's been a while." Rufus bowed elegantly and kissed the air half an inch above my hand. I suppose if I hadn't been stuck in a rundown fortress in Wutai with him for several weeks at one point, I might have thought he was charming. As it was, I knew his failure modes too well. "How has Midgar been treating you?" 

"Not badly, everything considered, I suppose, although now that I'm recovered, I don't intend to stay for long." 

Dad . . . twitched. Rufus raised his eyebrows and said, "Oh?" 

"I'm intending to return to Cosmo Canyon and pursue the Study of Planet Life." 

"Interesting," Rufus said, but from his expression . . . 

"You think it would be a waste of time," I said. "I disagree. The Immortalis may know more about how the Planet actually works, but their understanding comes from a Cetra perspective. The Study of Planet Life is for those of us who can't speak to the Lifestream directly. It's the history of purely _human_ interaction with the Planet, and principles for how those of us stumbling around blind can do better." 

Rufus chuckled. "Don't worry, I'm not going to try to change your mind--especially not when you've just given me a rare opportunity to see your father surprised. Good luck to you, Miss Verdot." 

"Thank you, Mr. President." 

Dad was now giving me a Look, so I led the way over to the wall near where Vincent and Sephiroth were half-hiding. _Fewer_ witnesses, and trusted ones, but not _no_ witnesses. I wasn't quite sure what Dad was going to do, and I preferred not to be spirited away into some Turk oubliette. 

"I wish you had told me," was the first thing out of Dad's mouth. 

"How would you have reacted if I had?" I asked him. 

He actually winced. "Probably not well. I . . . haven't really been handling any of this all that well, as Vincent pointed out to me at considerable length on Thursday night. It comes of having left most of the day-to-day parenting to your mother, I suppose, because my job didn't allow for anything else . . . but really, that's just an excuse. I've dealt with enough trainees that I should have known that part of it's about letting go. It's only . . . I just got you back." 

"And you haven't lost me again. You _won't_ lose me again. I promise. I'll call you every night, if it'll make you feel better. And I'm not leaving for a while, anyway." 

"Maybe not _every_ night. And . . . I have to admit that I'm not quite sure why you're waiting." 

"Because I'm not leaving Shears in jail, in Midgar, alone. He doesn't have anyone else anymore." 

Dad made an irritated gesture. "That boy . . . Still, I suppose it could be worse. At least he cares enough about you to follow you to hell and back. He won't abandon you if you get in trouble." 

"It isn't as though I'm dating him. He's just a friend." _For now._

"I'm not sure whether that makes me feel relieved, or angry that he can't see how wonderful my daughter is." 

"For now, just concentrate on getting used to the idea that I _will be_ going to Cosmo Canyon, and Shears might be coming with me. I'd really prefer you didn't try to matchmake for me right now. I'm still figuring things out. It's going to be a while before you have grandchildren, if you ever do." 

Dad developed a look that somehow managed to be half-dreamy and half-panicked. "Grandchildren . . . I'd worry about them constantly." 

"Daddy, sometimes you are such a _Turk_ ," I said with an exasperated smile. "If I ever do have kids, it won't be until I'm sure I can protect them. Without the old Shinra around, it won't be nearly so difficult." _I don't blame you, do you understand? Even if you did order the bombing, you nearly killed yourself trying to get Mom and me out. I'm going to blame the old President Shinra, and let the rest go._

Dad was a Turk. Surely he'd be able to decode that. Enough of it, at least. 

He did seem more relaxed now, and less like he was going to shoot anyone who got too close to me with his gunarm. 

Maybe we could make this work, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> It's actually crows that come in murders, but it felt like a good collective noun for a group of Turks, too. ;)
> 
> I'm probably the only person here who _isn't_ playing (or recently done playing) the Remake right now. Some of the reasons for that are logistical, others are personal. Instead, I'm currently 90% of the way through Crisis Core, having played portions of the game with my eyes closed (not joking here—the camera action makes me motion-sick), and _extremely_ unimpressed with both the gameplay and the dub.
> 
> The quarantine has been a bit of a wash for me, since I was already set up to work from home. This is good for the condition of my bank account, but has not added to my free time.
> 
> Status of the other FFVII 'fics I'm working on, some of which may never be finished:
> 
> Untitled _Blood of Heaven and Earth_ sequel: nearly done with Chapter 33. I think I'm somewhere near the halfway point.
> 
>  _Night of the Werechocobo_ : Somewhere in the middle of Chapter 13. Not even _close_ to halfway.
> 
>  _Fumbling Towards the Light_ : One of the other stray time-travel-fix-it stories, in which Time-Travelling!Sephiroth ends up as Cloud's quasi-father-figure. Finished Chapter 36. This _might_ be past the halfway point.
> 
>  _Pry Open the Sky_ : There are two different versions of this (one with time travel, one without). Cloud discovers that Jenova's species are supposed to live in telepathic gestalt groups, and consequences snowball from there. Partly an excuse for Seph/Cloud and Seph/Genesis/Cloud tentacle porn. I have 6-7 chapters of each version of this (and haven't gotten to the tentacle porn yet in either one). Both are stalled.
> 
> Untitled time-travel 'fic: In which Sephiroth returns to the past in order to kill himself as a fetus, and discovers that it doesn't help very much. Only about four chapters, but it won't let me _not_ work on it.
> 
>  _The Demon, the Chocobo, and the Chrysanthemum_ : In which a young Godo Kisaragi orchestrates a raid on Nibelheim during the early 1980s and ends up rescuing and adopting Sephiroth, who grows up in Wutai. Three chapters. Stalled.
> 
> (Yeah, I don't know how I keep track of all of these either.)


End file.
